Social Media: A Perpetual Spring

Spring is here, and the world is literally transforming into newness right in front of our eyes. As I sit at my computer, appreciating the magic outside my windows, I pause and smile because it hits me – Social Media exists in a state of perpetual Spring.

Social Media is constantly evolving, always changing, always giving birth to something innovative and fresh. As new technologies and new platforms are developed, they seem truly to take on lives of their own.

Is the transition from old to new always smooth? Definitely not. Facebook’s changes over the past year, for example, were met with great resistance. Many people vehemently protested the ticker, the timeline, the news feed changes and more. In the end, however, protest or not, the changes still came.

Not all social media innovations thrive. As one platform, such as the social networking aspect of Google+, struggles to survive Winter, another like Snapchat is born. The world of Social Media constantly beams with new life, and every aspect evolves in its own unique way.

Such is it with people. By participating in the world of Social Media, we have the opportunity to create our own seasons of growth and change, to be the first bloom or the last.

Either way, what matters is that we bloom. We engage. We live.

Local citizens everywhere embrace the world of social media and use it to engage in their communities. In Halifax, Nova Scotia, for example, there are approximately 3 tweets talking in some way about the city every minute. This means that over 2,000 conversations take place every day by hundreds of Twitter users. Just imagine that taking place in a non-virtual atmosphere: hundreds of people having 2000 conversations at once while actually hearing and responding to what everyone else is saying.

Conversation. People. Life.Social Media is not technology. It’s a way to connect.

Why should you participate? Not to grow your business, increase your brand or make more money, although those are all powerful by-products.

You should engage in Social Media because that is where the people are, and to be where the people are, to be part of the people, is to share in something greater than ourselves.

Together we have the power to inspire, to shape our futures, to change the world. We may yet discover that Social Media is the most powerful way to do just that.